Best Compression Drivers today 2022?

ra7

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Marco, I am doing some research and will get back to you on your question about TAD-2001. It may be a couple of days. It is difficult to get good comparative measurements under the same conditions against some of the top drivers today. In the meantime, Mark’s measurements look really good. Also, as far as I know, TAD-2001 isn’t being manufactured today. And I’m not willing to play the ebay game with decades old drivers. But I will play your game and think about alternatives with equal or better performance. Hey, maybe we can all bring data to the table and learn something and improve our knowledge.
 
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Yeah. Think! You cannot spread speculation either, by definition. It's speculation until proven. Conversely, you can disseminate seemingly correct measurements and data that are accurate on the surface but are meaningless since they don't capture the actual issue.
Have a look here - even in the datasheet they didn't hide it. Look at the impedance plot ...
https://bcspeakers.com/en/products/hf-driver/archive/de750

I was owning HK Audio VT Tops at that time and Craaft T12 and N12 (what a beast). And did measurements myself which showed the same result as the datasheet. This was 2005/2006, I used an ancient version of LSP Lab for measurements ... sorry, can't open these any more. o_O

I bet now you show measurements of the TAD drivers. Or the ones from the cool dude ...
 
Wow - that's a horrible implementation of the BMS. Who is doing that? A 1,4" driver on a to small 2" Horn? Puh ...
Even the stock frequency divider network is better as that.

On the other side you see the resonances of the B&C - and this was the good model, the bigger 750 was worse when I remember right.

Edit - some old measurements I found (2006) which I could convert from emf to jpg but which don't show that much information. 4592ND on Limmer 2" Horn.
4592 gesamt sweep.jpg
4592.jpg


There is in no way a hole in the 10kHz area with these drivers if you don't make HUGE mistakes. The crossover is pretty tight, no area to play around, but it works. A lot of K2 THD with the small tweeter driver ... but still sounds better as membrane resonances.
 
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Cessaro... not good. Lacking integration.
JMF... I was expecting better.
The other red ones... better, but still room for improvement.

Bottom line, I 100% agree that just using TAD drivers is no guarantee of good results. Many factors at play.

Favourite room... probably the small booth with the Taiwanese LALS speakers (which looked like TAD 2402 knockoffs, but with their own woofers and 1" drivers...)

The Magico room also sounded good, I must admit. As did one of the Wilson Audio rooms.

Then, the Audio Note JP room with the vintage Jensen speakers did something very right on some music (e.g. Art Pepper's "You'd be so nice to come home to")... but then it disappointed on other tracks.
What a surprise! If they do able to compare with Magico I would be very interesting...considering their price
Got to hear the LALS longer this year.
Last year on TAA 2022 hifi show I only heard them playing vocals. Good vocals performance.
 
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Marco, I am doing some research and will get back to you on your question about TAD-2001. It may be a couple of days. It is difficult to get good comparative measurements under the same conditions against some of the top drivers today. In the meantime, Mark’s measurements look really good. Also, as far as I know, TAD-2001 isn’t being manufactured today. And I’m not willing to play the ebay game with decades old drivers. But I will play your game and think about alternatives with equal or better performance. Hey, maybe we can all bring data to the table and learn something and improve our knowledge.
The later TD-2002 are even better... ;-)
 
Cessaro... not good. Lacking integration.
JMF... I was expecting better.
The other red ones... better, but still room for improvement.

Yes, yes, and yes. The red ones were the least worse and using tad 2002 (I think) but the cutoff freq was too high (by ear). In general I thought there were MAJOR low freq issues. Amazing how we agree on these. :)

Bottom line, I 100% agree that just using TAD drivers is no guarantee of good results. Many factors at play.

Favourite room... probably the small booth with the Taiwanese LALS speakers (which looked like TAD 2402 knockoffs, but with their own woofers and 1" drivers...)
The Magico room also sounded good, I must admit. As did one of the Wilson Audio rooms.
I cannot stand either one or multidriver towers in general. I am speculating that the low efficiency, lossy xover and the needed high power amps pushes a ton of energy through the freq band and, while it creates a very flat response, that response is also very highly compressed and approaching white noise-like. At least to my ears. I am sure someone has made this point before. This is audio, probably all ideas have already been discussed. ;)
Then, the Audio Note JP room with the vintage Jensen speakers did something very right on some music (e.g. Art Pepper's "You'd be so nice to come home to")... but then it disappointed on other tracks.
agree. At times the sound was very colored with an 'old paper cones' signature.

I liked the Acapulco with the full range Great plains driver. I think the implementation could have been better but the potential was there.

Finally I enjoyed the TAD bookshelves. Lots of air and dynamics. I may have convinced myself that the neutral signature was the same as the TAD compression drivers.
cheers!
 
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Wow - that's a horrible implementation of the BMS. Who is doing that? A 1,4" driver on a to small 2" Horn? Puh ...
Even the stock frequency divider network is better as that.

On the other side you see the resonances of the B&C - and this was the good model, the bigger 750 was worse when I remember right.

Edit - some old measurements I found (2006) which I could convert from emf to jpg but which don't show that much information. 4592ND on Limmer 2" Horn.
View attachment 1176917 View attachment 1176918

There is in no way a hole in the 10kHz area with these drivers if you don't make HUGE mistakes. The crossover is pretty tight, no area to play around, but it works. A lot of K2 THD with the small tweeter driver ... but still sounds better as membrane resonances.
It's the 4592ND instead of the 4594 ;)

Indeed the DE75 is the best of the range, doesn't have a snout either. There's breakup, but it's reasonably well damped > Mylar suspension.
 
Generally, I tend to agree.
But those two rooms I thought sounded rather good, so I won't let my own prejudices stop me from admitting as much ;-)
I liked the Marten enough to stay for a song. Nothing that raised to a buy level of course. The designer started to talk to a guy and explain to him that the tweeter and mid were Be and that a first order x-over was used, then I understood why I liked them. ;)
 
I would like to point out that nearly two decades ago we did a blind listening test. Two two way waveguide systems were made with two different driver sets. One was TAD and the other B&C. From some 30 participants there was statistically no difference between the two sets (although they were statistically different than two other non similar designs.) That's when I changed to B&C drivers.
 
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Hi mark100:
Love your previous sharing on DCX464 with XT1464 horn. The directivity control seems perfect on this combo.
Is the 4594HE your final choice over DCX464?
How do they compare? Thanks!
Hi yys310,

funny you should ask which is final choice....because that's something I'm currently deeply engaged with, trying to figure out...(still)

I've been alternating the two CDs in my latest experimental build syn11.
The 4594he is the easier of the two to get sounding super on wider array of material.
But on certain material, the dcx464 has a degree of clarity/realistic sound, that I can't quite match with BMS.
On other material, it sounds bright despite measurements that say otherwise...simply dunno why.

I've noticed this difference between the CDs before (on about every horn/syn I've built),
just not as strongly as on the latest syn11 test platform.

So sorry to say, I'm probably not much more help than I've ever been, on this.

I really do wish I had more than one dcx464...
totally screwed up when I didn't buy two. (especially back when they first came out for under $500 !)
Need to hear a good stereo setup with it...
 
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